Solo Figaro Massif Marine - 8th

Solo Figaro Massif Marine - 8th

www.samgoodchild.com/blog
After safety checks, shortened courses and delays due to fog the first event of my season finally got underway last Friday. With 4 days of preparations and the first security checks of the season (which are always the hardest ones) we headed out for the scheduled start on Thursday.
We waited 5 hours with fog so thick the race committee were unable to lay a start line with enough visibility to see the other end, at about 1700 they gave up for the day and we all went back into the harbour. With an early start the next day we were out on the water again with a shortened course of 120nm and a determined race committee armed with a few interesting ideas for tackling the fog.
Thankfully we had no issues on the start and got away cleanly. The first few hours saw large splits in the fleet and intermittent winds. Even though up and down for me it turned out well and I turned up in 6th place, minutes behind Nick Cherry at the first mark. As the sun went down we approached Ile de Yeu and we had a fleet re-shuffle that I, unlike others, was fortunate enough to only loose distance on the people behind me and not any places.
Reaching back to Les Sables D’Olonne after the 1st loop I found my self amongst and few top guys and was happy to be able to keep up with them. For the second loop it was slightly different and I had dropped back from 5th to 7th by the start of the 25mile final stretch. After just over 24hours racing I crossed the line in 8th place, very happy with my performance and looking forward to the season ahead even more than previously.
The next race for us in the double-handed AG2R Transat. I will be competing with Nick Cherry aboard my boat, Artemis 23. The Start is on the 21st April so preparations are well underway, the boat is being re-painted this week, then we have two weeks training, an AG2R press conference in paris, a 5 Artemis boat photo shoot and no doubt, another round of security checks.
All for now,
Sam